1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus used for converting an input file into data and transmitting the converted data, a control method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known a communication apparatus that includes a function for converting document information or image information input as a file into transmission data and transmitting the obtained data. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-264666 discusses a communication apparatus that converts a file into image data in a format receivable by a facsimile machine by using rendering processing when the communication apparatus receives an electronic mail and an attached file of the received electronic mail is to be transmitted to a facsimile machine. The transmission data obtained by the rendering processing is hereinafter referred to as rendering data.
The above-described rendering processing is also necessary in performing facsimile transmission of a file stored in a hard disk included in the communication apparatus. The file is, for example, a file in Portable Document Format (PDF) or text data.
However, the use of the above-described method in transmitting the transmission data generated by executing the rendering processing for a file to be transmitted may cause certain problems. For example, when transmitting rendering data obtained by file conversion using facsimile transmission, if the transmission processing is executed in parallel with the conversion processing, the conversion processing may take time depending on the page content. If the conversion processing takes time, the data may not be transmitted normally.
In the case of facsimile transmission, data is transmitted with an interval less than 6±1 seconds according to a standard (ITU-T.30). Thus, if the conversion processing takes time, this requirement cannot be satisfied and a transmission error may occur.
Although the transmission processing can be started after all the conversion processing is completed, since the time for the conversion processing as well as the time for transmission processing is necessary, the whole processing will take a much time.
Additionally, if it is determined that the destination apparatus is not in a transmission-acceptable state (e.g., malfunction), the executed conversion will be useless.
Further, if the rendering processing of all the files is performed before receiving the transmission instruction and, further, if the rendering data of the files is stored in a memory, in order to store data of a large size, a large amount of memory resources will be used.